The integrated solution accelerates business processes. Customers can batch scan business documents and checks together from anywhere using CAPSYS CAPTURE Software via MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER Browser a TWAIN compliant document scanner, such as the KODAK i1200 Plus Series Scanners. The solution eliminates the need for business to ship business documents and checks to a central office for processing and deposit.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Come Join Us for Paperless Office Day!!October 27thTraining event at the City of Chicago's Center for Green Technology located at 445 N.Sacramento Blvd. in Chicago from 9 am to 3pm

Demonstrations on the advantages of Scanning vs. Printing will be provided throughout the day. Please register for this event so we know how many to expect. It will be on going and repeated several times during the day from 9am to 3pm.

We will also be awarding the prizes for our Paperless Office Contest at a luncheon for the contest participants at the Center for Green Technology

Fujitsu Scanner and Kofax Express capture software will be awarded to the organization that saves the most money by utilizing Green Technologies in their organization.

Less Printing, Less Copying = Less Cost, More Green!

Take advantage of this contest to reduce your operating expenses utilizing Paperless/Green techniques. For more information as to how to participate call or email either Paul Winiecki Paul.Winiecki@idt-inc.com phone 630-875-1100x327 or Pete Feehan Pete.Feehan7@gmail.com phone 312-218-4857

Shred Fest – Iron Mountain to provide shredding trucks for your convenience – bring up to 5 boxes of documents for FREE shredding. 9am to 3pm at the following locations:

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

When it comes to paradigm shifts, cloud computing is one of the biggest to hit business in decades. In a nutshell: cloud computing is the delivery of computing resources as a service over the Internet. Say “good-bye mainframe” and “hello utility computing,” as vendors serve up computation and storage on a metered basis, similar to public utilities like the electric company. The advantages of cloud computing would make any red-blooded business executive’s heart beat faster: no capital investments, reduced operating costs, billing on a “pay as you use” basis, zero IT maintenance and 24/7 system access from anywhere you have an Internet connection. Plus, there is unlimited flexibility to scale up or down based on demand.

But before making the leap to Software as a Service (SaaS), one of three cloud delivery models, the smart executive wants to know about the risks – and how to mitigate them. With SaaS applications, user data is stored on third party servers in third party data centers, raising understandable concerns about security and privacy. In fact, the protections offered by major SaaS vendors often exceed what the vast majority of businesses can afford to provide themselves. Still, “look before you leap” is wise advice, so ask vendors these nine questions:

1. Does your application fit my business requirements and workflows?Any application being evaluated should fit your existing workflows without major disruption, not just currently but as needs change and grow.

2. Will you be around for the long haul?Nothing is more disruptive than a critical vendor going out of business. While there’s no silver bullet for determining long-term viability, check out: management bios, client references, customer base, financial standing, media coverage, blog postings.

3. How will you keep my data secure?Don’t settle for a general policy overview, drill down into procedures at data centers, vetting for technicians, authentication protocols, encryption levels. Check on ability to meetcompliance requirements specific to your industry.

4. Can you guarantee the privacy of user information and user data?Beyond general privacy policies, ask about data-related laws in countries where infrastructure is located. Find out if customer data is used in promotion and advertising or sold to third parties for marketing purposes.

5. What are your terms and policies about ownership of data?Your data should be your data, period. Find out what happens to it when you delete it from the application, or if you discontinue their service.

6. What is your uptime performance, and do you offer Service Level Agreements?No matter how great the SaaS application, if it isn’t available, your business can take a hit. There should be multiple copies of data stored in geographically diverse data centers. Check that a disaster recovery strategy is in place.

7. How often do you upgrade and perform maintenance on your application?Downtimes due to maintenance should be minimal.

8. How easy is it to integrate with other applications?Some vendors offer integration services internally, others use third-party providers. If it’s important that you easily integrate with existing SaaS applications, ask how that’s handled.

9. What level of customization do you offer?It varies by vendor. Custom domain options, branding, customized transaction definitions and workflows, and data field customization are a few examples. Ask if the application can be extended, or if permissioning – who has access to what – can be customized. Cloud computing is an exciting innovation with a potentially dramatic impact on business technology as we know it. The next time someone asks, “Is your head in the clouds?” you can reply, “Yes, but I knowwhich questions will keep my business on solid ground.”

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The controversy involved ESI stored on a Plasmon archiving system which producer argued was so cumbersome that the data contained within it was not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost under Rule 26(b)(2)(B). The system was described as similar to an optical jukebox, containing 500 double-sided DVDs accessed by a robotic arm. The limitations of the system caused producer to replace the Plasmon system with a new system, but data on the Plasmon system had not been migrated.

Producer’s expert testified that production of the requested emails could potentially involve the access of all of the 500 DVDs in the system. Only one custodian’s email could be recovered at a time, preventing access by producer’s employees of archived emails while the searches were in progress. Attempts to access more than one user’s emails at a time caused the system to freeze, requiring a cumbersome reboot. As only 8 emails per hour could be restored, the total restoration of 25,000 emails (assuming 11 hours per day) would take 284 days. Restoration for 5 custodians could therefore take up to 5 years. Outside vendors could not perform the restoration as many of the DVDs could be only be read by proprietary equipment owned by producer, and producer would be without access to the information during the restoration process. The expert estimated the cost of retrieval at about $834,000, significantly higher than producer’s original $88,000 estimate.

At a later discovery conference, the court was informed that it would be possible to produce email stubs containing to, from, subject, and the first 80 characters of the email. In addition, the court was advised that more than half of the disks were not formatted using a Plasmon proprietary method. These disks utilized a universal data format (UDF). Producer’s expert testified that if the disks were high volume, they could contain up to 2 terabytes of data. It would take over 500 hours to copy the disks and producer would be required to purchase a hardware system with sufficient capacity to hold all of the data. The expert consulted an external vendor, which estimated that the copies would cost several hundred thousands of dollars, with thousands more required to purchase the hardware.

Requestor’s expert disputed the UDF testimony. She noted that the proposal of producer’s vendor was not attached, and provided an alternative estimate that all of the UDF DVDs could be copied in 3-5 business days at $35 per DVD, or $17,850, assuming that the vendor could copy more than one DVD at a time. A second estimate from another vendor of $25,500 was also obtained. This vendor would charge $2,550 to store the 2 TB of data. The approximate 93,000 emails would produce about 11 GB of searchable data, based upon an industry standard of 7 pages per email. Search costs were estimated at $95 per GB of data, resulting in a total search cost of about $1,100.

The court noted that requestor had submitted the proposals with the expert’s declaration, and also observed that the costs were aligned with producer’s original $88,000 estimate. The court rejected producer’s expert as “not credible.” In addition, it was difficult to conclude that the Plasmon data was not reasonably accessible in light of the fact that it continued to be used by producer’s personnel. “The fact that a company as sophisticated as ADT (which is wholly-owned by Tyco, International, Ltd…., a Fortune 500 company) chooses to continue to utilize the Plasmon System instead of migrating its data to its now-functional archival system should not work to plaintiff’s disadvantage.” Id. at *17-*18.

The court also found that good cause required production of the information even if the data were not reasonably accessible. “Simply deposing ADT personnel without benefit of ADT’s ESI does not allow Starbucks to discover what a witness knew, to challenge the testimony that he or she provides, or to provide the accurate contemporaneous thoughts of ADT decision-makers.” Id. at *19.

A Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(iii) cost-benefit analysis militated in favor of production:[I]t is significant that the ESI critical to this case was created during a time period which means that it is housed on the Plasmon System. Moreover, ADT concedes that Starbucks is seeking at least one million dollars in damages, ADT has a counterclaim seeking at least $ 400,000, and there is no question that both parties in this case have the substantial resources necessary to conduct this litigation. Finally, it is important to note that Starbucks has attempted to limit the burden on ADT by narrowly limiting the number of ADT employees or former employees involved and further providing search term filters for those persons. There is no evidence that it is attempting to leverage ADT’s ESI problems.

Id. at *19-*20. The court ordered that the parties make copies of the UDF disks and to save them to an appropriate storage medium. Producer ADT was ordered to produce email stubs for the custodians, appropriately filtered using search terms for the Plasmon formatted disks. Requestor could then designate which emails would be produced from the Plasmon system.